Wild - Cheryl Strayed

Wild - Cheryl Strayed

After a series of very bad luck in her life (divorce, death of her mother, self-destructive behavior), Cheryl decides to change her name and hike the Pacific Crest Trail with no real hiking experience. Along the way, she meets many people with whom she connects and shares part of her travel. I didn't know what to expect when I started reading the book. I had heard about it from a TV show I will not mention and decided it was something I would like to read. I like reading about real people who have taken their lives into their own hands to make it better. So it wasn't like I was expecting the book to be only about hiking. After reading it, I wish the author would have focused more on her empowerment, and less on the self-pity Cheryl often displayed throughout the book. The back and forth between past and present also took me a while to get used to. By the end of the book, however, it didn't really bother me that much. I enjoyed getting to know her and learn what she had gone through in her life. I even bawled like a baby after the death of a certain animal. But, overall, the self-pity parties took away from the enjoyment of reading the book. The reason why I am giving 3 stars is because I enjoyed the hiking part of the story, meeting the different characters, and the emotion the author conveyed through her story. 2.5 stars might have been a more suitable rating, to me.